


if, then, else

by yorkisms



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Additional Tags TBA, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Gen, Oneshot collection, Past Torture, Polyamory Negotiations, Romantic Relationships are Passing, Siren!Gaige, past canon character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26264293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yorkisms/pseuds/yorkisms
Summary: The life after loss of Gaige the Mechro-Siren. (She's workshopping the title. Mechro-siren does sound pretty badass, though.)
Relationships: Angel/Gaige (past), Brick/Lilith/Mordecai (Borderlands), Brick/Lilith/Mordecai/Roland (implied), Brick/Mordecai (Borderlands), Gaige & Vault Hunter(s) (Borderlands)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7





	1. Afterparty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Storm_Song](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storm_Song/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Like You've Seen a Ghost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25857259) by [yorkisms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yorkisms/pseuds/yorkisms). 



> Based on my siren!Gaige oneshot, which probably needs to be read for these shorts to make sense. They're all based in that continuity, for the most part following BL2. I originally intended to finish and post a oneshot about the Commander Lilith DLC, but it's not quite getting there so I decided to quit nitpicking my own work and post some of my shorts. 
> 
> Most of my "shorts" file for this AU is high-key me shouting from the rooftops my full belief that Mordecai and Brick should have adopted* Gaige as well as Tina. Welcome to my twisted mind. 
> 
> *[They acknowledge that she has a biological dad who loves her, but they look out for her in a parental way. Like foster parents. I think it's a good dynamic and I control the fanfic.] 
> 
> Thanks to Storm_Song for commenting on the original fic and expressing interest in any of my followups! I don't think this is what you expected when I said I had other ideas, just however many chapters of me writing vault hunter found family, but here it is anyway.

"Didn't feel like staying at the party?" 

Gaige jumps in place, setting down the echolog she was holding. "Jesus shit!" 

Mordecai cackles a bit, sitting down in one of the office chairs. "Hey, kid. I saw you duck out of Moxxi's, figured I oughta check on you." 

Gaige makes a face, looking down at her hands in her lap. "I dunno, I thought I would be celebrating more, but…" 

His face softens a bit, Gaige notices. It'd be kind of hard to notice because of his goggles, but she picks it up anyway. She supposes it's only fair. She looked after him in the days between Bloodwing's death and retrieving Brick from Slab Town, of course he feels obligated to check on her. 

"But you wanted things to end differently." 

Gaige nods quietly. 

"I know. So did I." 

Gaige always feels awkward and out of place trying to confess her grief to her elders. That day in the core, they lost two people. 

Mordecai drags a hand down his face and scoots the office chair he's in closer to her bed. "We didn't talk to her a lot on the first hunt," he says quietly, and it makes Gaige's stomach turn that he's trying to comfort her of all things when he knew Roland a hell of a lot longer. And was in a relationship with him, sort of, kind of. 

"You don't have to," Gaige says quietly. "I- I don't want you, Lilith, and Brick to step out of your way to do all this for me. You don't have to." 

Mordecai's about to say something, but he notices the echolog at Gaige's side and picks it up before she can say anything. 

"What's this?" 

Gaige stays quiet. She has an echolog of her and Angel talking while she works on Deathtrap, but that's not this log. That log is secured right next to Deathtrap's "heart," along with a picture of Angel's hologram. 

"Kid? Gaige?" 

She looks back at her lap, and tries to mumble some kind of explanation, but nothing comes out. 

"Can I listen?" 

She doesn't say yes. She doesn't say no, either. She almost wants him to, in fact, just to take the secret away from her of how she kept it together the last month or so. Surely he, of all people, can begrudge her a little torment. 

Eventually, he listens anyway. Gaige barely flinches as the sound of a dead man talking fills the room. 

_"Alright, you little shit. I've got you on a private channel, now I can tell you what I really need to say. You're disgusting, vault hunter, you're nothing. The others, they're professional madmen, they get paid to be this way. You're just a psychopath with a wrench who likes to make that everyone else's problem. I'm gonna- I'm gonna beat you to death with your stupid fucking arm. And when I'm done with you, vault hunter, I'm going to go to Eden-5 myself. I'm going to go there myself and I'm going to scoop your daddy's eyes and nuts out with a melon baller. Even if he lives I'll have done him a favor. I'm going to tear that robot of yours apart, patent it and melt the original down and make it a goddamn dining table centerpiece! The others might have killed her, vault hunter, they might have taken her life, but you took something so much fucking worse."_ The now-deceased Handsome Jack inhales deeply, needing a break before continuing his tirade. _"You made my little girl think someone like you was worth anything more than the dirt on my fucking heel. I'd say you're gonna be joining her when I'm done, but that'd be a great joke. You're going so far into the dirt the place Angel is won't even be a goddamn concept in your fucking mind. Her name doesn't belong in your fucking mouth."_

Gaige looks up, shrugging weakly, as the echolog runs to an end. "-it made me want to kill him more?" 

"Were you gonna smash this thing?" 

"I dunno. I was considering whether to or not." 

"Yeah, I'm gonna make that decision for you, kid. This thing is going to be a million pieces on the street in five minutes." Mordecai sets it down on Gaige's bedside table, and continues softly. She knows he's bad at this sort of thing- that he's only talking because he thinks she needs it. That almost makes her feel worse, considering. "Maybe it worked in the moment, but if you listen to it enough, he's just gonna get in your head more than he deserves. He's not worth the energy, specially not anymore. That's what we're doing tonight, right? Putting the dickhead in the rearview?" 

Gaige nods. 

"Then let's do that outside of the party." Mordecai stands up, grabbing one of his sniper rifles. "I'm gonna show you something cool as hell." 

The streets of Sanctuary are almost totally empty, with everyone either freely visiting other places on Pandora or crammed in Moxxi's bar cheering for the end of the war with Hyperion. Mordecai takes Gaige to a roof, the soft light that Elpis gives off falling gently onto the buildings. He loads and cocks his rifle. 

"That bot of yours can do a decent toss, right?" 

"Horizontal or vertical?" 

"Vertical." 

Gaige summons Deathtrap and hands him the echolog. She keeps one hand around Deathtrap's before he can leave. 

"When I say pull, you throw this thing up as high as you can manage, boy." 

Deathtrap makes an amiable beep, and she gives him a hug before he flies down to the street. Mordecai looks down his scope at the place Deathtrap is standing, and then pans his view upwards slightly. 

"Okay, go." 

"PULL!" Gaige shouts, and Deathtrap throws it. 

Bang. The echolog is pierced by a bullet faster than it can fall, the internal mechanisms severed, but not completely destroyed. It lands on the ground, casing cracking. Gaige claps. 

"How much do you think we can destroy it?" She asks, and Mordecai grins. 

"That's what I'm talkin' about, _hija._ " 

"DT! PICK IT UP AGAIN AND THROW ON MY MARK!" 

It's Gaige who falls asleep first this time, eventually wearing out from the night, and she ends up in what Mordecai thinks is a position he couldn't even manage, sleeping on his shoulder. Of course, he still has Deathtrap to himself, and he commands the robot over and over until the whole accursed tape is just fragments on the concrete and the sky's starting to turn pink. Unsure of what to do, he whistles the robot over, and Deathtrap stares at him blankly. 

"Uh. Can ya take her back to HQ?" 

Deathtrap doesn't say anything, but he does gently pick up Gaige and settle her on his back in a piggyback position. Gaige doesn't stir, which isn't surprising since she's slept on Deathtrap plenty of times before. Deathtrap quietly glides back down to the street. Mordecai slides down the roof ladder and slowly walks back. He considers if he needs to tuck Gaige in like he does with Tina when she falls asleep in the middle of something, but when he gets back Deathtrap has tugged the blanket up in a messy fashion before looking at him and despawning. Mordecai shakes his head slightly- never ask a combat robot to do detail work- and fixes the blanket before heading upstairs. 

Brick's half asleep when Mordecai crawls into their bed. He makes a questioning noise, and Mordecai sighs, tossing his goggles off to the side. He'll get them later. 

"Sorry, _cariño_. Had something important to do." 


	2. Body Parts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maya and Lilith are in charge of helping Gaige figure out how to control herself as a new Siren.

Maya listens patiently when Gaige can't bring herself to touch the part of her that's Siren. Though she's already killed Jack and let him know full well that revenge was from not just her but Angel, she struggles now to open up to the idea that phaseshift now belongs to her. 

"It's never a happy thing," Maya tells her, soothingly, as Gaige wipes her eyes from another rush of unwillingness to practice controlling her powers. "Becoming a Siren. We've all lost someone we love because of it." 

Lilith almost leaves the room right then, but doesn't, because she's one of the only people who is closest to what Gaige experiences. And from experience, if she walks out, Gaige feels even worse for it. 

Maya looks at Lilith and impatiently tilts her head as if to say talk to the kid. 

Lilith sits down next to Gaige, finally, and puts her hands over Gaige's. 

"Listen up, killer," she says, trying to sound commanding but her voice is raw from the shared memory of Control Core Angel. "Maya's right. That's why we try to do this with you, because we get it. I got my tattoos when I was a kid, seven or eight maybe." 

_The same age as Angel,_ Gaige thinks, but doesn't say. Lilith didn't hear those tapes, she doesn't think. 

"I used to scare people by playing with them," Lilith continues. "And I got bullied in school." 

That, Gaige can sympathize with. She was that girl too. 

"-And I get," Lilith says, getting choked up as she carries on and they have to confront the shared trauma in the room, "I get that you don't want it because of how you had to get it. I really do. I feel that way about command of the raiders. But it's not going anywhere. The raiders need me. And your powers are with you until the day you die now. Angel would want you to accept them. Just like Ro-" Lilith pulls back one hand to cover a choked off sob. "-like he would want me to do. You have to be strong for her, killer. She's with you forever now." 

Gaige looks up from the ground, eyes red, and throws her arms around Lilith. She knows that they shared the experience, but she never really thought hard about the parallels, other than that they both lost someone. 

Maya doesn't speak for a long time, and Gaige just cries with Lilith for all of that time to let out the pain of their mutual loss. 


	3. One, and a Two, and a One-Two-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lilith has been avoiding Mordecai and Brick since Gaige killed Handsome Jack. They have a good vent at each other about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Implied torture (nongraphic, but discussing Brick and Lilith being tortured at the hands of Hyperion.)

Lilith had always been the more upbeat and outspoken member of their team, but after the vault she kind of fell silent. It wasn't hard to notice, and her two remaining counterparts have noticed. 

Lilith does things still, she runs the entire city now and every afternoon she and Maya do their best to train the new Siren on Pandora. Still, where years ago Lilith would have greeted Brick with a big hug and a request for a piggyback ride, she now just gives him a tired wave. 

They notice. Of course they do. At times it feels like they're holding the Crimson Raiders together, between caring for Tina and Gaige (whether Gaige likes it or not) and trying to affirm their connection with Lilith. 

They had always been a…well, maybe not a square, because a square implies boring, and the true heroes of the first vault were anything but boring. Months of traveling together had turned into an easy intimacy none of them ever truly cared to name on any one end. Yes, Roland and Lilith were banging and so were Brick and Mordecai, but everyone was aware Brick would go straight for Lilith and Lilith only (she liked to joke about it) and that Roland was a lot more flexible than he liked to imply. 

So what was the point? By the end of things, they were all together more than enough for each other. 

Still, it feels to Brick and Mordecai now that since Roland died, Lilith has broken herself off from them. Not just due to the whole kidnapped thing, just…in general. Like she willingly cut the ties that bind them and is drifting off into the void. 

Both of them want to grab her hand and bring her back, but they're not quite sure how. 

Strangely enough, the answer comes from Tina. She wants to play more B&B, and one thing leads to another, and they're sitting around their kid's table laughing again for the first time in years. 

"Wait, Lily," Brick says one night after Tina's run downstairs to go find Gaige and Lilith is about to leave. Lilith stops in place and balls her fists, tattoos flashing tersely. 

There's a tension in the air. Mordecai sits up, looking between the two of them.

"Brick," Lilith says, "Don't-" 

But whatever Lilith does or doesn't want, it's too late. The rakk hive in the room has already been all but named. 

"Lily, please," Brick interrupts, voice so tight it's almost breaking. "You have to-" 

"I don't want to talk to you guys. About it. About anything." 

"You play with us," Mordecai points out unhelpfully, and Lilith slams a fist into the doorframe so hard it cracks. 

"You know what I mean. I can't stand being around you two because you're still okay, and you're still in love like you've always been, and even when you aren't every time we're around a table there's a missing seat." 

"Lily, you can't just give this up because of grief- can't just give us up-" 

"When was there ever an us, Brick? Last I checked you and Mordecai weren't there when he died." 

It's a low blow, and Lilith knows exactly what she did on that one. 

"We hunted for you," Mordecai growls, clearly annoyed with Lilith's attitude. "We would have searched every inch of this shithole planet-" 

"Well, bully for you," Lilith replies mockingly without missing a beat. "I was too busy to notice. Not that you would know that." 

"Of course we know that," Brick says flatly. Lilith turns on him, then. 

"Oh, how could you possibly know what I was feeling?" 

Lilith realizes she crossed a line for all of them the second the words are leaving her mouth. There's one thing they never, ever discussed in front of Brick, and that was the events of New Haven. In the moment, she regrets forgetting that she isn't the only person in this room who's been tortured by Handsome Jack. 

Brick stands up, and Lilith figures she's about to deserve the broken bone she's gonna get, but instead he takes off his shirt in total, threatening silence and turns around, leaning on the table. Lilith winces, already knowing what she's seeing. 

"Jesus shit…I know I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry." 

" _Ay, que buen idea, cabrona,_ " Mordecai snarks. 

Brick's hand tightens into a fist on the table. Mordecai and Lilith should both know better than anyone that ever since New Haven, his back and chest have been absolutely flooded with the scars of an electric whip. Brick always looked beat up, rugged, scarred, but this is terrible, even for Pandora. Lilith wants to claim she doesn't love them anymore but thinking about that night when she and Roland had first examined them with Mordecai sitting in front of Brick (holding his hands and talking to him soothingly in Spanish) still makes her stomach turn. Actually, seeing it right now makes her stomach turn. She wants to claim she doesn't love them anymore, but she burns with hate thinking about it. Their solid, irrepressible optimist and gentle giant reduced to a cornered animal that barely even accepted the presence of his loved ones. 

"Tell me again," Brick says, voice dangerously low, "Tell me again that I don't understand what you're going through." 

"I'm sorry," Lilith repeats, voice desperate not just from fear of her friend caving her skull in (and if she dies right now she thinks she wants to appoint Moxxi as her successor because Moxxi would be the most badass siren). She really does feel sorry. She tried to push them away but she crossed a line in the process, and clearly, they won't be letting go of everything they had with her. 

"There doesn't have to be an empty chair," Mordecai says. "Let's- ugh, Lil, let's just start over. There's a back then and then there's now. We're not trying to bring back the old days, we just want you around." 

Lilith feels her eyes prick with tears. She wants to push them away again. She wants to hit Brick again where it hurts, say something about the dog or about the Sheriff or about Wilhelm or about how Mordecai got shot in the leg in New Haven. But she can't, and what she wants more than she wants all of that is to return to the comforting aura of their presence.

"Okay. Okay. I'm sorry." 

Brick puts his shirt back on and spreads his arms with a grin. He's always been the most forgiving, always able to shake off a group argument like it was nothing. 

He's always been the most loving, keeping each and every one of them in his heart whether they like it there or not. 

Lilith runs up to him and jumps into his arms, crying into his shoulder. 

It turns into Lilith and Mordecai sitting on Brick as he holds both of them. They all apologize and they all promise that it's going to be…not quite the way it was, but the way they now need it to be from here on in. 

Tannis walks upstairs in the morning while eating a cereal bar and staring at an echo to find that they pushed their beds together (like they used to, in New Haven, except of course back then it was four twin beds instead of three.) Brick is spread out across the mattresses, snoring, and Mordecai is snoozing on his chest. Lilith has her leg flung over both of them, face in her pillow. 

Tannis, of course, not really appreciating the _love_ of it all, just turns around and leaves. 


	4. Backstory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A missing scene from the original fic. Gaige talks about her past with Axton.

Axton sits down next to Gaige at their campfire in the tundra. She's shivering a little from not having a solid jacket, but he doesn't comment on it. 

"Hey, Gaige?" 

"Hm?" 

"What brings you to Pandora?" When Gaige looks at him with distrust, Axton elaborates. "You're just a kid. I wanted to make sure that you were, you know…that no one was hurting you or something." 

Gaige starts, surprised by that interpretation of her predicament. "No, no. Nothing like that." She pulls her legs up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. "I killed someone." 

Axton looks a little concerned- and confused, confused is on the table. "So you came…to Pandora?" 

"It's not like I liked her," Gaige mutters, annoyed. "It was an accident, though. And I always wanted to come to Pandora. I just thought I'd be older! Like, your age!" 

"Hey!" 

"I always felt this pull," Gaige says, ignoring his outrage. "Like, I always thought Pandora was the coolest place in the universe and it would be so awesome to come out here and vault hunt and explore this incredible planet. But I came too early. I wanted an engineering degree first." 

"So what happened?" Axton asks, gentler. "If you don't mind telling me." 

Gaige shoves her face into her arms. "I made a robot for the science fair. It killed my stupid rival Marcie Holloway because I made it wrong." 

"Is that Deathtrap?" 

"Yeah. Her parents owned the police, so they used my progress reports talking about wanting to win against her to make it sound like I meant to do it. So I had to go away. My dad helped me get on a transit ship to Pandora." 

"He couldn't come?" 

"No. He was causing the distraction." 

"Do you still talk to him?" 

"Sometimes," Gaige admits, "When we've had time. But don't tell anyone, it makes me sound lame."

"I won't tell anyone," Axton says with a small smile. "I went AWOL from my unit thanks to my ex-wife. I still miss her." 

"I miss my dad sometimes," Gaige mumbles. "But don't tell anyone I said that, either."

"Of course not," he promises. "I'll make sure he doesn't have to worry about you in the field. You can tell him that." 

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr!](http://maggie-wittington.tumblr.com)


End file.
